Technical Field
Aspects of the present disclosure relate to a droplet discharge head and an image forming apparatus incorporating the droplet discharge head.
Related Art
An image forming apparatus, such as a printer, a facsimile machine, and a copier, is known to have a droplet discharge head to discharge droplets of liquid, e.g., ink for image formation. The droplet discharge head includes, e.g., nozzles to discharge droplets, liquid chambers formed by processing a substrate and communicated with the nozzles, and pressure generators to generate pressure in liquid in the liquid chambers. As the pressure generator, the droplet discharge head includes, for example, a piezo-type electromechanical transducer element in which a lower electrode, an electromechanical transducer film made of a piezoelectric material, and so on are laminated one on another on a diaphragm constituting part of a wall of a liquid chamber. When a voltage is applied to the electromechanical transducer element via the lower electrode and the upper electrode, the electromechanical transducer element deforms. Such deformation displaces a chamber-side surface of the diaphragm having the electromechanical transducer element, thus generating pressure in liquid in the liquid chamber.